The New Rome on the New Tiber

That phrase was one used to describe the new American Republic, the new Tiber, of course, being the Potomac River.  Perhaps it would be fitting to look again at our heritage from the Roman Republic, in our law and our from of government.  These are some of the things we inherited from Rome.

1.  The fact of a republic itself.  We are not just a nation that can be described as free; we are a republic, a res publica, a thing of the people.  The government is not founded on a religion, nor is it a monarchy where we are the subjects of a king or queen.  We create the government and the laws. 

2.  Rome gave history the first secular legal code, the Twelve Tables.  The laws were not an inherited tradition, nor did they have their legitimacy because they were approved or given by some god or gods.  In order to create a legal code, the Roman Republic established a commission to travel the known free world, examine the laws of these nations, and return to recommend a formal legal code to replace that of the monarchy.  The Twelve Tables, the original Roman law, was authoritative because the Senate and the People of Rome approved it, and for no more reason than that.  The Senate and the People said that "x" was the law, so it became the law. 

3.  From Rome, as interpreted by Marcus Tullius Cicero, we adopted the principle that power was to be divided among different branches of the government.  The beauty was that one branch could completely thwart the intent of another branch.  The Senators, for example, might want a particular law, but if the people refused to ratify it, it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.  The people could pass a law, but only the Senate could fund the law.  Without funding, of course, the law is dead.  No one branch of the government is supreme, no one branch has the right to demand the support of another.

4.  Our tradition of jury trials is also a Roman, not as is commonly thought, British, practice.  The English convened grand juries to investigate possible crimes, but the trial itself, all through the Middle Ages, was by ordeal, combat or compugation.  Romans, on the other hand, were guaranteed a trial by a jury of citizens for any criminal matter.  It is a right we treasure, and one principle objection to the treaty establishing the international court to investigate war crimes.

5.  Additionally, Rome gave us the tradition of the presumption of innocence.  The burden of proof was on the prosecutor, not the defense.  As even the Emperor Julian stated to a frustrated prosecutor when he was presiding at a trial, "How can anyone be found innocent if all you have to do is accuse him?"